I ask no more from mortals
Than your beautiful face implies,
The beauty the artist beholding
Interprets and sanctifies.
Who says that men have fallen,
That life is wretched and rough?
I say, the world is lovely,
And that loveliness is enough.
So my doubting days are ended,
And the labour of life seems clear;
And life hums deeply around me,
Just like the murmur here,
And quickens the sense of living,
And shapes me for peace and storm,
And dims my eyes with gladness
When it glides into colour and form!

Is life so dear or peace so sweet as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God. I know not what course others may take, but as for me, give me liberty or give me death

As Shakespeare himself knew, the peace, the reconciliation that he created on the stage would not last an hour on the street.

Edward Bond

Christians have oppressed Jews, Moslems, Buddhists, Pagans, and each other throughout their centuries of power, preaching religious intolerance as the word of Jehovah whenever they had the military, political, or economic power to make it stick and then piously preaching brotherhood, peace, and toleration when they didn't.

Phillip Emmons Isaac Bonewits

You can't build a peaceful world on empty stomachs and human misery.

Norman Ernest Borlaug

A sane being wished for peace and serenity, not to be the mortar in which the ingredients of destiny are finely ground.

But first a hush of peace, a soundless calm descends;
The struggle of distress and fierce impatience ends
Mute music sooths my breast unuttered harmony
That I could never dream till earth was lost to me.